The psychological processes that link
children’s exposure to violence with subsequent
increases in children’s aggressive
behaviors can be divided into those
that produce more immediate but transient
short-term changes in behavior and
those that produce more delayed but enduring
long-term changes in behavior.
Long-term increases in children’s aggressive
behavior are now generally agreed to
be a consequence of the child’s learning
scripts for aggressive behavior, cognitions
supporting aggression, and aggression-promoting
emotions through the observation
of others behaving violently. This
observational learning generally requires
the repeated observation of violence. On
the other hand, short-term increases in
children’s aggressive behavior following the observation of violence are owing to 3 other quite different
psychological processes: (1) the priming of already
existing aggressive behavioral scripts, aggressive
cognitions, or angry emotional reactions; (2) simple mimicking
of aggressive scripts; and (3) changes in emotional
arousal stimulated by the observation of violence